In defense of studded tires, and those who use them, would you prefer I crash my modest little (but paid-off) Bunny Buggy into your ass end the first time it (unpredictably) snows here? Do you have any fucking idea how slickery snow is, and how completely unsteerable a car equipped with ordinary street tires is in the white stuff? It’s not like studded tires can be popped on or off with every changing weather report. Even though I own a first-rate floor jack, of the type that professional garages use, I’m too old and frail to do it myself anymore. This is a job that calls for a hoist and two strong young backs. So I have a tire store do it for me. But getting a tire store or garage to swap out your tires when there’s a snow forecast is like trying to get a plumber to unfreeze your pipes. It’s not gonna happen unless you make an appointment AHEAD of demand. Which means, for all practical purposes, that you put on studded tires in November and take them off in March, because nobody can predict when or if we’ll get snow in Puget Sound. Please stop hating on cars and those who depend on them so much, Carl. Some of us are too old and frail to get around on bicycles or foot. Buses don’t go everywhere we have to go, and aren’t practical for carrying packages (such as the bulky item of medical equipment you have to return to the clinic). Yes, studded tires beat up road surfaces; so, go ahead and raise our fuel taxes and vehicle fees, we’ll pay to fix ’em. Fwiw, I had my tires swapped on Friday, after checking weather forecasts to make sure it wouldn’t snow before going to a meeting in Olympia on Saturday, so I’m already good to go, even though studded tires are still legal through tomorrow.

Conservative radio was in full throated indignant outrage,playing the victim argument that religious’ s first amendment rights were being suppressed. Full attack and destroy on anyone who objected to the law. How dare angies list pull their money!

Conservatives have a problem with real history the way they have a problem with science and religion. They think they can pick and choose what they want to believe despite the facts. And knowing all the facts is the only way to solve problems. Hence, they screw up everything.

This isn’t the big kahuna ruling we’re expecting in June, but die-hard foes of Obamacare lost another round in the Supreme Court today.

“The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a new challenge to President Barack Obama’s health care law that took aim at a bureaucratic board labeled by some Republicans as a ‘death panel’ because it was designed to cut Medicare costs. The high court left intact a ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that threw out the lawsuit. The court’s action in an unsigned order was a victory for Obama administration ….”

This case involved a standing issue. “Standing” refers to having a right to sue because you’re hurt in some way by the law you’re seeking to overturn. Today’s ruling says the plaintiffs have no right to sue because they’ve suffered no loss or harm under the law.

Roger Rabbit Commentary: Scroll down and note the bit about school uniforms. What is it with Republicans and their fetish about making kids wear school uniforms? Is this to get them ready for military duty, to fight Republicans’ wars?

Ivar’s Salmon House isn’t waiting for Seattle’s $15 minimum wage to phase in. All of its employees will be paid at least $15/hr. beginning the day after tomorrow. To cover its increased labor costs, Ivar’s Salmon House is raising menu prices by 21% — but eliminating tips. Because I usually tip 20%, that means the wage increase will cost me only a 1% price bump — easily affordable for a capitalist bunny who’s making $4,200 in the stock market this morning. Were you righties holding your breaths while waiting for Ivar’s Salmon House to go out of business? I’m so sorry that didn’t work out for you. (Just kidding. Really, I hope you choke on it.) Another nail in the coffin of the Cheap Labor Conservative myth that paying living wages forces businesses to go under.

@8 as someone who bartender and served for many years I don’t understand Ivars decision. tips don’t come out of the business, and most servers and bartenders at Ivars sit-down restaurants make more than that with tips. However dishwashers, hostesses, line cooks and possibly bussers, will receive an increase in pay.

a 20 percent increase if food prices will easily cover this increase and probably create extra profit for Ivars and taking away yip makes it revenue neutral for customers.

To me it looks like the employees are getting the shaft and ownership figured out a way to increase profits through price increase and making it look like it was because of some Nobel cause.

Hope this is investigated a little more. But my guess is their best bartenders and servers will go to restaurants who pay 11 dollars an hour and provide tips. 15 an hour is not much for them.

@10 Hmm, interesting, looks like someone has figured out how to turn higher wages for their employees into a profit center for themselves. A concept sure to catch on with business owners as Seattle phases in its $15/hr. minimum wage. Who owns Ivars now? As I recall, he left his entire estate to the University of Washington. Did the U.W. divest the restaurants, and are they in private hands now?

It’s interesting that republicans claim that because they aren’t scientists that they can’t draw any conclusions on global warming but they are smart enough to draw conclusion that the Indiama Freedom of bigotry bill will not lead to discrimination, this they are do certain of. The are a bunch of fuckwads. They don’t deserve a dime for a paycheck and should be scrubbing toilets to make ends meet.

@11 I don’t know who owns Ivars, but I do believe that most restaurants will increase prices to more than cover the labor costs and use the higher wage as the justification and will actually turn a greater profit.

Or their plan will back fire and a smaller family owned restaurant will be able to compete. if I sell 60 burritos an hour and may wage increases 6 dollars an hour, I only need to raise the price of the burrito a dime To cover. So when you see a restaurant raise it .50 – 1.00 they will be making more profit then before.

That additional increase is where the small family owned place will be able to attract more customers By offering similar food for a little less.

Businesses that oppose the min. wage increase will make all sorts of political statements and I’m not sure if Ivars is one of them yet.

because employees who make tip are allowed to make less than 15 an hour, so this way has to be more profitable with the price increase or else why not go up gradually like the law allows?

The New York Daily News reports that the photo snapped by the group of women wasn’t the only one. Christina Freundlich, a former worker for the Iowa Democratic Party, posted a photo of herself in front of the site, smiling as she flashes the “peace” sign.

Shallow? Self-absorbed? It’s all about a DUMMOCRETIN! DUMMOCRETIN of course!

I thought republicans gave a hoot in whether a bill was popular or not. Like the ACA, their biggest argument was the nobody liked it……apparently not everyone likes the Indiana Bill, but it’s popularity doesn’t really matter, does it.

Republicans and mules. And water melons. And washing machines. All of you smeared. Tarred with a broad brush. How’s that feel, you melon-fucking pervert? Piss you off? Too fucking bad. Sucks to be you, Puddy, and always will.

The Washington Post [and our moronic babbling jackass], seems to believe that if a law has a similar title as another law, they must be identical. “Indiana is actually soon to be just one of 20 states with a version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA,” the Post’s Hunter Schwarz wrote, linking to this map created by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The problem with this statement is that, well, it’s false. That becomes clear when you read and compare those tedious state statutes. If you do that, you will find that the Indiana statute has two features the federal RFRA—and most state RFRAs—do not.

What the monomaniacal moronic moonbattic memoryless crazed cretin yellowishleakingbuttspigot absolutely neurotic low IQ arschloch and other useless DUMMOCRETINS forget over and over is the challenge must pass court muster, or so the babbling yellowishleakingbuttspigot arschloch never understands a court challenge from the “aggrieved party”.

And the article writer’s scream over Hobby Lobby still misses the point… The SCOTUS decision specifically called out Obummer and HHS from not taking the path of least resistance and instead they went for the jugular. This author EPIC FAYLES here and hence Puddy READ and LAUGHED at the monomaniacal moronic moonbattic memoryless crazed cretin yellowishleakingbuttspigot absolutely neurotic low IQ arschloch bowel blockage again!!!!

This is just another scream at left wrong puke jobs who want to steal the occupation of people like Brendan Eich because I’m gay and dammit you will do as I please no matter if it disagrees with your religious convictions.

This is why you will always be the monomaniacal moronic moonbattic memoryless crazed cretin yellowishleakingbuttspigot absolutely neurotic low IQ arschloch!

You see monomaniacal moronic moonbattic memoryless crazed cretin yellowishleakingbuttspigot absolutely neurotic low IQ arschloch, Connecticut’s RFRA law is more stringent than that of Indiana… And this is why just about all HA DUMMOCRETINS are really LIVs.

Connecticut’s law, however, is far more restrictive of government action and far more protective of religious freedoms. How? Because the Connecticut RFRA law states that government shall not “burden a person’s exercise of religion[.]” Note that the word “substantially” is not included in Connecticut’s law.

If I didn’t know better, I’d be left to assume that the voices agitating to repeal a 20-year-old legal framework that was not even remotely controversial until last week were more interested in outlawing religious liberty than they were in preventing discrimination.

That’s the real motive of the gay crowd. Because if you can destroy the religious component of a Christian’s argument, they have no argument!

This is why arguing with the monomaniacal moronic moonbattic memoryless crazed cretin yellowishleakingbuttspigot absolutely neurotic low IQ arschloch and almost all HA DUMMOCRETINS is a real lesson in futility. Y’all live on

We love our DUMMOCRETIN Crooks and We ignore our DUMMOCRETIN liars, Daily Kooks, and Media Morons, PoliticsNotUS, and other fool sites with no real ANALysis!

They have to show that the government action substantially burdens a religious belief that they sincerely hold. And if they prove all that, it falls to the government to show that the challenged action is justified as the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling governmental interest. Having a RFRA doesn’t mean that you know which side wins, it just sets the terms of the debate.

And this is why Hobby Lobby won. This will always be lost on DUMMOCRETINS all over. HHA and Obummer went for the jugular and not the least restrictive means!

Tim Cook is a real kook. He screams about the faux discrimination of Indiana while excusing the real discrimination in China so he can make the Apple iJunk at slave labor rates so DUMMOCRETINS everywhere can run and buy it!

I looked more into stories about the Ivars increase and they are raising the wage of employees to 15 an hour, plus 17 out of 21 percent of the price increase is tip to be split by the staff, with the server getting 8.

We used to pretty much tip out 10 percent anyway so the wages for the employees should actually be better or at least equal with most of it being guaranteed.

Also if the consumer already tipped 21 percent they would end up paying exactly the same amount of money.

Kudos to Ivars for this. My skepticism was wrong. I may have to go out of my way to eat there.

The modern American “Christian” is just a self-aggrandizing liar who bought into the entire Amway schtick and sold it to the next sucker like a cheap box of weak-ass soap flakes that don’t really do jack diddley shit except get hard on the shelf after one realizes how fucking weak they really are.

But it wasn’t the product that made the money, it was the selling of that product that was the real profit machine. Who gives a rat’s ass about the sermon on the mount. It’s all about the bucks. We don’t really need you to sell our shit, we really need you to buy into the process of selling that shit, and by making that that sales pitch, you can make money just as Jayzuz wanted. Because faith without wealth is a sign of weakness. Jayzuz loves the salesman above everybody else.

It sure as shit ain’t the guys in engineering that make the money, and those smarmy pricks in support are just leeches on the system. The real purpose of the Faith is to sell.

Besides, if you can’t get rich off of selling Jayzuz, you’re probably a communist anyway. God wants you to have that Mercedes Benz and that Whites-only country club membership. God wants you to have that nice shiny new washing machine and the chubbly little black girl to keep it running. God LOVES white people. But you better not be a Jew. God hates it when Jews golf. They’re always putting from the rough, so to speak. Jews ain’t white anyway. They’re practically Moslems with all their fancy “special” food and that gibberish they’re always yelling at each other, and for fuck’s sake, you see those fucked up hats they wear?

SpittlePuddle’s particular brand of “faith” is right out of Richard de Vos’s bullshit capitalist playbook. Sold to the masses like a batch of bad smack that turns your dick into a withered black worm stuck to the sidewalk like you see in the summer when the sun comes out right after a rainstorm.

SpittlePuddle’s particular brand of “faith” is right out of Richard de Vos’s bullshit capitalist playbook.

Wrong again for the 24 Vigintillionth time vomit producer.Why wpuld Puddy listen to you when your prophet is an atheist? Trying on a new set of black knee high marching boots? Jackboot goose step marching with this guy now, eh? Puddy never believes in that religion and has never proposed it here. This is why you are just a silly racist vomit maker!

“if Puddy attacked the Univision person Puddy would be called a racist.”

We call you a racist because that’s what you are, a fucking racist. And a bigot.

“Since you chose to attack the Univision person… well if the foo shits!”

I didn’t attack anybody, you dumbfuck stupe, except you. I wondered why on earth you failed to attack Latinos, seeing as how you hate them so goddamned much. Almost as much as you hate LGBT. But not nearly as much as you hate yourself.

Too funny for fucking words. And why would anybody ever listen to you when your prophet, Ellen White, was crazy, a total, complete fucking loon. As for her batshit-insane end-times prophecies (one fail after another), here we are, still here, over a century and a half later, still ticking. Talk about total fucking fail bullshit. And yet you still believe. And why? Because you’re a dumber-than-a-stump racist, bigot and cultist.

Puddy has no problem with what WalMart does or says. Puddy likes WalMart. Puddy shops at WalMart. Do you as a DUMMOCRETIN you can’t be seen there? It’s HA DUMMOCRETINS like you monomaniacal moronic moonbattic memoryless crazed cretin yellowishleakingbuttspigot absolutely neurotic low IQ arschloch whom attack WalMart, always disagreeing with them, then on a dime you turn and agree with them. Forked tongue disease to go with that koro disease and those pink lace panties. What color is the skirt today, since Mrs arschloch wears the pants?

Still on that Apple rant and you still trying to use it… Guess that iJunk comment really hit home since you love using Safari as your “HA DUMMOCRETIN browser”. EPIC FAYLE number 247 (getting ever closer to 250 EPIC FAYLES), eh monomaniacal moronic moonbattic memoryless crazed cretin yellowishleakingbuttspigot absolutely neurotic low IQ arschloch? Thanks for playing it again so everyone can read the full thread where Puddy explains the Korean customer only used Apple products in their plant so Puddy brought one. Tim Cook would rather get in bed with Chinese dictators, slave labor camp owners than Real Americans of Indiana. Demonstrates where Apple’s sad priorities are!

Still Puddy’s Seoul Brother, since you still live vicariously through Puddy’s travels. You’ve used that Seoul Brother attack now seven times… God’s number of perfection except you hate God, His Only Son Jesus Christ, and The Holy Spirit… A real three time hater!

Gov. Pence is a lying POS. When he signed the law, he did it with LGBT haters standing behind him.

This is the kind of bigoted motherfucker that the asswipe Pense was playing to,

“[He] said that as a Christian he understands that some people have a different “lifestyle” than him, but he doesn’t want them coming into his place of business and making his customers “uncomfortable.”

The hosts did not let him off easy, asking directly if he has ever discriminated against gay people in his restaurant. “I have discriminated,” he said openly, explaining that he has pretended there was a problem with his kitchen in order to not serve them in the past.

“That makes you feel OK?” Rachel Bogle asked him. “I mean, when you get a bed at night saying, ‘I’ve discriminated against other human beings,’ you feel at ease with that?”

Ryan said he feels fine about it because he believes he should be able to do whatever he wants in his own restaurant. “We don’t want to have this in our place of business, it’s just not right,” he said. But while the caller was happy to share his story, he would not say the name of his restaurant.”

No word yet about how he feels about serving blacks, Latinos, Asians or any other non-WASP who might make his customers feel “uncomfortable”.

I’m in the mood to say, keep the fucking law, but the law should be changed to require every damned business in Indiana to have signage at their door declaring which Americans they will discriminate against by refusing to serve, accommodate, or in any way do business. That will surely help the rest of us, individuals, businesses and corporations, determine where we’ll spend and invest our fucking money.

“[He] said that as a Christian he understands that some people have a different “lifestyle” than him, but he doesn’t want them coming into his place of business and making his customers “uncomfortable.”

Perhaps Indiana needs another law requiring non-Christians living in, or visiting their state to always wear or be branded with an identifying mark so good Christian Hoosiers can identify them and target them for discrimination.

Then that “person” would lose in a court of law. RFRA would not protect him as Puddy provided the links above to prove that! Can’t you see that or is your hatred for anyone who thinks different than you blinds your thought process?

Alan West was in town….how come no one told me? He Piddles, did you go kiss his ring or some other part of him? Is your man-crush on tossed-out-of-the Army Lt. Colonel a sin?

Apparently he did not disappoint.

Why is it that you want to relegate (sic) the individuals on the football field to success, to score a touchdown, but yet you would rather have people in your city, in your state, in your country sit on the sidelines and wait for somebody to go out and score a touchdown for them?

“How dare you scream and cheer here on a Saturday or a Sunday at the UW stadium or there in CenturyLink stadium and then when it comes to Monday through Friday, you’re not cheering? You’re seeking every single way that you don’t create victors, you’re creating victims. That’s the incredible perplexion (sic) that we see.

“How dare you scream and cheer here on a Saturday or a Sunday at the UW stadium or there in CenturyLink stadium and then when it comes to Monday through Friday, you’re not cheering?”

Heh! Between czechsaaz and the certifiably crazy Alan West, I’m now imagining a grinning Richard Sherman selfie taken at the signing of the Indiana law with the Governor and his bigot pals behind him. That’d be too fucking funny!

“Can’t you see that or is your hatred for anyone who thinks different than you blinds your thought process?”

My presenting as an example a business proprietor in Indiana who is chomping at the bit to legally discriminate against LGBT, and only he knows who else might make him religiously “uncomfortable”, is not hatred. For you to equate it to such and for you to take such strong exception to any condemnation of that mindset only serves to further reveal to any reader with a functional decoder ring that your cult-addled mind now resides in a very strange, dark place.

Point well taken! Made in America! Maybe Israel, too, if just for irony’s sake. American Christo-Fascists may like Israel’s hard-right politicians now, but just wait until Puddy’s Rapture comes and we’ll see how well it plays out for Likud then. I doubt that they’re gonna like it much, being gunned down by a blonde, blue-eyed Christ packing an Uzi.

Steve et all, There aren’t any state laws protecting against lgbt dicrimination in Indiana. RFRA is not a license to discriminate. The citizens of Indiana are free to do so already… So where was all the indignation before RFRA?http://www.in.gov/icrc/2651.htm#

@60 so why pass the law? What protection are they looking for? You should be asking the bigots that? The wrong stiff that you are.

There should be no protections for anyone. Blacks nor women nor religion. People should be allowed to discriminate in all form, inclusive of anyone calling themselves the right stuff, specifically you, just for you being you!

EPIC FAYLE!!! “We were told” the moron doesn’t give its coin to Apple.. The troll brainwashing sez Apple is part of the librul klownspiracy and tracks its users. The troll’s fambly don’t wanna be tracked by Apple.

So it uses its coin to make liberals like Tim Cook richer. For bidness purposes it sez. Yeah right.

Only one problem. It used an Apple product to conduct its political activities.. The toolish fool of these comment threads can’t separate bidness from lunacy.

No need telling you as you know better than I, but to put it out there again, Christian wingnuts want state laws to protect them as they use religion as an excuse to discriminate against those they hate, in this case LGBT, and to treat them as second-class citizens. Bonus points for state laws overriding librul big-city laws that ban such discrimination.

Local control. Yet another traditional conservative value thrown under the bus by the Christo-Fascists who call themselves Republicans.

A quick guide: Your religious liberties ARE being violated if…. – You are not allowed to attend a religious service of your choosing – You are not allowed to marry the adult you love – You are being forced to used birth control, even though it is against your religion – You are not allowed to pray privately in your home or in a public place – You are not allowed to purchase, read or possess religious books and materials. – You are not allowed to teach your children creation stories of your faith, in your home, or church.

Your religious liberties are NOT being violated if…. – Others are allowed to attend a religious service of their choosing, or not at all. – Someone else is allowed to marry the adult they love, regardless of what your religion says – You are unable to prevent others from using birth control – You are not allowed to force others pray publicly – Others are able to access books, movies and websites you don’t approve of – Public school science classes are teaching children science you don’t approve of

@62 et all, I provided you the link. Did you look? LGBT is not protected. So why all the outrage now? A baker is free to discriminate against LGBT community, and deny their patronage, before, and after RFRA. is it the outrage du jour, so get your signs out and protest? Maddow, kos, demo underground etc says its RFRA so off you go? Legit question, where was the outrage before RFFA?

@69 Thank you for confirming that in the face of facts, you’re left with nothing but childishness. The fact is no one in HA land could give $0.02 about LGBT rights in Indiana. Just drones waiting for the next call to outrage from your minders.

What’s really funny is that I dont support RFRA anywhere, as I view it as redundant and uneccessay. I also think any business who discriminates against its customers is stupid. I do support equal rights for everyone, including SO, and GI.

Of course. I imagine there are others here who, like myself, are growing increasingly intolerant of a stupid someone asking stupid questions while babbling about his stupid fucking imaginary mirror.

“Because I believe in equal rights for everyone?”

The only equality that would ever result from your shallow and insipid vision would be when society devolves to the point that everybody hates everybody else equally. As it’s somehow easy to imagine everybody in the world hating you, I’d say that you’re off to a good start!

@46 You don’t believe in Jesus, and saying you do doesn’t make it so. You’re as phony as all the rest of the ersatz Christians who defend the war, torture, corruption, hypocrisy, racism, and bigotry that define today’s Republican Party.

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